KR20030019603A - Selection of an item - Google Patents

Abstract

A method is provided to facilitate the selection of at least one item from the selection of items, each of which includes identification information for identifying each item. The method includes associating each item with at least information about a last time accessed, providing information about the frequency of access of each item, and specifying selection criteria regarding the last time and frequency of access; Displaying a limited selection of items based on the specified selection criteria.

Description

{Selection of an item}

Many consumers have audio archives in their homes. These records are currently recorded on physical media such as vinyl records, compact cassettes, compact discs, and the like. Typically such media are stored on shelves or other storage structures. The consumer or user has various ways of organizing the physical medium. For example, the genre may be arranged in alphabetical order of artists or titles, and in decades, such as the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

However, the physical form of the media makes it bothersome and difficult to organize and rearrange when the collection increases. In addition, these collections are often shared by several users (eg, home members), which may have different appearances depending on the ordering method used. If the tidying method feels too complicated for the user, the user does not forcibly properly arrange the medium after use, but rather places it in the vicinity of the playback apparatus out of order. More complex sorting methods (eg how often a record is played) are nearly impossible to maintain. In particular, when the desired recording is only one of many on the recording medium.

For many music collections, determining which music to listen to and selecting it can be difficult for the user. Indeed, the user must rely on his memory about the music collection contents or browse the entire collection to find the music the user wants to listen to.

A conventional approach to this problem of ordering and handling physical media in a multi-user environment, such as homes, is a jukebox. These devices often help the user in deciding what music to listen to by automatically replaying selections by genre, artist, set of decades or other classification methods. A drawback of conventional jukeboxes is that jukeboxes are too slow and bulky to operate, for example, to be accommodated in a living room of a home, since it is the physical medium that must be primarily stored and handled.

With the advent of compressed digital audio formats such as MP3 files and falling prices of hard disks, this is changing. Thus, jukebox solutions based on multiple hard disks have emerged in the consumer electronics market. An example of this is WO-A-99 / 64969, which is incorporated herein by reference.

In addition, quite a bit of jukebox software has been developed for use in personal multimedia computers. In the use of such software, some of the software may be freely downloaded from the Internet, and a conventional multimedia PC may effectively function as a jukebox.

Many of these software applications use the informal ID3 standard for storing metadata with music. This standard allows MP3 files to be tagged with information about the genre, artist, album title, track title, lyrics, jacket photo, and many other kinds of information. In connection with the above configurations, this data allows for a new kind of configurations and classification methods that were not possible before.

In particular, the ID3 standard has two frames of interest in the present invention. The first frame is a playback counter frame (PCTN) indicating the number of times an MP3 file has been played. The second frame is a popularity indicator frame (POPM) that indicates how often a particular user has played an MP3 file. For this purpose, the user is identified primarily by e-mail.

It should be noted that for hard disk based jukeboxes, hard disks storing music, which may be dedicated units or become general purpose multimedia computers, are not necessarily local. Rather, it is easy to think of centralized and stored music that is accessed through the jukebox interface on a personal computer or dedicated unit and received via the Internet.

Despite the improved possibilities of arranging and displaying music selections, none of the jukeboxes is enough to help the user decide which music to listen to and select it.

The present invention relates to a method for facilitating selection of at least one item from selection of items, a data structure associated with the item, and a jukebox device comprising a plurality of the items.

1 shows a first example of an information architecture according to the invention;

2 shows a second example of an information architecture according to the invention;

3 illustrates a graphical user interface that enables selection of records based on preferences.

4 illustrates a second graphical user interface for exploration of the access history of individual users.

FIG. 5 illustrates a third graphical user interface that represents the popularity of a single item over time. FIG.

6 illustrates a fourth graphical user interface that enables estimation of the average popularity of multiple items.

7 shows the relationship between popularity and freshness.

8 shows a graphical display of the most familiar items.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method, data structure and jukebox that assist the user in selecting an item.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, this object is achieved by a method according to the preamble, which method comprises: associating each item with information relating to at least the last time accessed; Providing, specifying selection criteria relating to the last access time and frequency of access, and indicating a limited selection of items based on the specified selection criteria.

This has the effect of allowing the user to dynamically select the music that is most desirable to them. The most important criteria for preference are the freshness and the popularity (ie, the time elapsed since the last time the item was accessed and the total number of times the item was accessed).

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the object is achieved by a user of a data structure associated with the item, wherein the data structure can be derived at least information about the last time the item was accessed and information about the frequency of access of the item. Contains information that is present.

This data structure makes it possible to carry out the method according to the first aspect of the invention.

According to a third aspect of the invention, the object is achieved by a jukebox device according to the preamble, which jukebox comprises essentially continuously changing input means for specifying selection criteria relating to the last time and frequency of access. Include.

Thus, an apparatus is provided which implements a method according to the first aspect of the invention and uses essentially a data structure according to the second aspect of the invention.

Advantageous embodiments of the method, data structure, and jukebox can be found in the respective dependent claims.

The invention will be described in more detail based on the non-limiting examples of the embodiments shown in the drawings. In particular, although embodiments relate to music items, it is important that the invention be fully applicable to other audio or video recordings such as movies, music videos, videos, still pictures, arts, web pages, electronic books and the like.

A fully implemented preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a method, data for selecting an item, such as recorded music items, based on how often the items are accessed (ie, how often they are played when the item is a music item). It provides a user with an improved system that includes structures and devices. Each time an item is accessed, the system collects information about what the item is, when the item is accessed, and preferably who is listening. With this information, the system generates a personalized overview of the items, ranging from infrequently accessed to frequently accessed, and from recently accessed to never accessed. Can be defined or any combination thereof is possible.

How often and how recently an item has been accessed relates to two psychological parameters that are important in determining what music to listen to: “freshness” and “popularity”. In addition, these two parameters provide the user with an indication of how "used" the item is at a given time, which is important for estimating how desirable the item is for the user. How these two parameters are related is shown in FIG. 7.

A preferred embodiment of the present invention stores these two parameters and thereby uses them to display a selection of music desired by the user, thereby providing a data structure that allows the selection of mainly considered music desired by the user.

If the user has purchased a recorded music item, this is a new record of several recorded items or a single item, and the user generally does not yet know whether the music is good. In the data structure 130 of FIG. 1, this means that the frame "number of times accessed" is zero. Preferably, the frame "last date accessed" is always filled with dummy data representing the current date until the item is actually accessed (ie, the frame contains the actual access date). In the data structure 210 of FIG. 2, there is only one frame “accessed time / date” and preferably contains similar dummy data representing the current date as the default. Alternatively, certain NILL values may be used, as is generally known in the database art.

After an item has been accessed many times, the perception of music increases, especially when the music matches the taste of the user.

Each of these access events will update the content of the data structures 130 or 210. In the data structure 130, the frame "number of times accessed" will be increased each time and the frame "last date accessed" will be updated. In the data structure 210, a new additional entry will be added to the frame "accessed time / date".

The user will get tired of listening to new music repeatedly, and will return to listening to old music that is not normally played as often as new music immediately after purchase, but more than the total number of times the collection has been played many times. Thus, this music has a high value in the frame "number of times accessed" in the data structure 130 of FIG. 1 and a low value in the frame "date accessed".

Using the two criteria "freshness" and "popularity" stored in the data structure 130 in combination provides the user with an "familiarity" indication of the item. Depending on the user's mood, the user's "preferences" may try to listen to familiar music items. This may be an item that has been accessed many times and / or recently, or one that is unfamiliar (eg, an item that is not accessed very often and / or a long time ago).

The present invention utilizes this display of "preferences" for displaying a selection of preferred items based on user input of each selection criterion.

3 illustrates a graphical user interface that enables selection of items based on intimacy defined by freshness and popularity (see FIG. 8). There are four sliders on the screen, two sliders 310, 350, a feedback window 390 showing the selection criteria, and stack horizontal bars 370 (CD) showing the items that meet the criteria. For the two sliders, the user can: As described in B. Shneiderman's Dynamic Queries: Database Searching by Direct Manipulation (CHI Bulletin 1992), dynamic queries can be set by setting values for popularity and freshness. Can be formed. One of the slider 310 and the buttons 320 and 330 may set selection criteria for popularity. Selecting button 320 results in a range of slider values, e.g., the number of times 25 or more items have been heard (popular items), while selecting button 330 represents a range of slider values, e.g. For example, less than 25 items generate the number of listens (popular items). 3 illustrates a situation in which a button 330 is selected, thus causing a selection of albums that the user has accessed less than 25 times, as shown in the feedback window 390. The slider 350 may set selection criteria for freshness of an item for a specific user. 3 illustrates a situation in which items accessed less than 25 times and not accessed this week are selected. Changing the position of the sliders 310 or 350 or switching the buttons 320, 330 can result in a dynamic update of the stack of items 370 and thus will meet the new criteria. In the stack, the items are preferably indicated by the above-mentioned bars which maintain at least the identification of the item. As can be seen from FIG. 3, the bar may maintain additional information, such as the number of times an item has been accessed. The user can select an item, for example, by tapping on each bar with a touch screen, mouse, track ball, laser pointer on the screen, using voice commands, using gestures in a virtual reality environment, and the like.

Using the data structure of FIG. 2 greatly improves the likelihood of assisting the user in determining which music to listen to and selecting it. 4 illustrates these possibilities.

It can be seen that some music has a short life cycle, and some last forever (top 10 of the pop music weekly and top 100 charts every year). The music the user is currently begging for is different from the music he liked a few years ago. However, often people still have old music in their collections, and sometimes listening to it again is an unexpected and wonderful surprise. In this regard, if people can explore their listening history, listening to old music again can be a great feature for people. People can go back months, years or even decades to explore the music they have played, discover new things in old music, or just know that their music tastes have changed. have.

4 illustrates a user interface that enables an individual's search history search. The screen shows a rack 410 with a group of five items 430 per time period 420 (month in this case). Items are represented by columns. Although shown for June 1999 only, all columns contain an identification of the item. The items in each of the five groups are the five most popular items in that period. The height of the column indicates the actual popularity of the CD in that period. The column may be provided with text corresponding to the height of the columns as shown. For example, the first CD in the June 1999 group was accessed 13 times in June 1999. By buttons 450A and 450B, the user can scroll further back and forth. The buttons 470 allow the user to select the resolution of the time scale of months to years, decades, or any time period without a time scale. The user can select an item, for example, by tapping on each column with a touch screen, mouse, track ball, laser pointer on the screen, using voice commands, using gestures in a virtual reality environment, and the like. By choosing to have no time scale (always), the most popular items can be displayed at any time (as long as the system is used). The most popular items are on the left, followed by the most popular items. The number of different items displayed within each time interval is only a matter of choice, so it may be five as shown in FIG. 4, but may be ten as shown in FIG. 6. The number used can be selected by the user or automatically adapted to the size of the display.

The data structure of FIG. 2 also allows for different user interfaces. 5 shows a user interface displaying the number of accesses to a single specific item. For a particular item, the number of accesses is calculated for specific time intervals selected by the user. The display may use columns 530, but may use an approximate curve when there is only one item that can be selected. Using buttons 570, the user may specify the desired time interval (eg, month, year, ten years or even at all times). Simply the latter, one column, represents the total number of times the item has always been accessed. Here, the display may also include scroll buttons 550A, 550B, allowing the user to view the present or past.

Using the data structure of FIG. 2, it is also possible to calculate the relative popularity of items in a user's collection. In this calculation, the time the item is owned is taken into account. Here, the relative popularity for the item is calculated as follows.

The lifetime is the time the item is owned, for example, calculated based on the first access date stored in the data structure of FIG. The time unit is selected by the user. Thus, an item owned and accessed 100 times for 20 years will get a relative popularity of 5 accesses / year, and an item owned and played 5 times for a month will get a (calculated) relative popularity of 60 accesses / year. On a monthly basis, this number of relative popularity will be 0.42 and 5, respectively. In addition, it is possible to determine that relative popularity never exceeds absolute popularity, and in this example, the relative popularity numbers in years will all be five. This avoids the user misunderstanding of the calculated number.

In Figure 6 this relative average popularity was used for other user interfaces. Ten different items that were accessed most frequently on average since the system was initialized are displayed in columns. The height of the column represents the popularity per unit of time with respect to scale 520, in this case 13 and 14 times per month, respectively, for items 630. Buttons 670 change the time unit, so that scale 520 associated with the items is displayed. Items can be selected by tapping on each column. In order to identify the items, as shown for items 630, columns are preferably provided with identification text. As shown, the display is provided with a scroll button 650 that allows the user to scroll the display to view choices with low average popularity.

As mentioned above, FIG. 8 relates to the intimacy of the items. Using the data structure of Fig. 2, the intimacy is calculated as follows.

Here, TE _i is the time elapsed since the i th access, as follows.

This information can be used to generate a display as shown in FIG. 8. In FIG. 8, the heights of the columns represent the intimacy of the ten items that are most familiar to the user, as calculated using the above equation. As can be seen, this display may also have the possibility to scroll through less familiar items. For example, only one can scroll by the scroll buttons 850 shown, since the leftmost column is the item with the highest affinity overall.

As can be seen from the above description of the various displays, the data structures according to the present invention do not require the user to rely on the memory of his music collection content or to search through the collection in order to find the music he wants to listen to.

As mentioned above, audio collections are often used by more than one person in the home, the popularity of the item, in particular the freshness, is the exact personal parameters of the item and some means for identification must be provided. Thus, in such a case, the above-described user interfaces require the management of entity 110, referred to as a "user." For this identification, one may rely on techniques such as RF ID technology, fingerprint identification, face recognition, speaker identification or any other identification technique.

In addition to the entity “user” 110, any unique item identification 120 is required. For audio recordings such as music, the identification may be, for example, an ISRC code managed by the International Federation of Phonographic Industry. For the combination of users and records, data on freshness and popularity are collected during playback of the records.

Now, a detailed description of the user interface is needed to determine what access data should be collected. In the case of the user interface shown in Fig. 3, this user interface only supports selection of the whole to collect only the cumulative data (ie for all users and items), and the total number of times accessed and the most recent access event. There is one database record (in entity 130 "access data") that contains the time stamp.

In order to enable the display of the actual access history (e.g., representing real albums of someone played three weeks ago, such as the user interface shown in FIG. 4), a data model as shown in FIG. 2 is needed. . In contrast to FIG. 1, all access events are managed with time stamps (in entity 210 "access history") (ie, for all user-item combinations) and as many times as a particular user has played a particular item. Database records exist. This data can be used to calculate cumulative data on the freshness and popularity of an item over different time periods.

In accordance with the present invention described above, although audio recordings have been described, they may be used for video recordings such as music videos, still pictures, art, etc., or combined audiovisual recordings.

In addition, the present invention can be used to access the popularity of visited web pages. In this manner, an automatically generated overview of the ten most popular web pages in a given time period is provided and sorted according to the frequency of visits, how recently they were visited, or a combination thereof. In addition, with the data structure of the present invention, indications as shown in FIGS. 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 are possible for this data. Features of this kind may typically be part of a standard web browser.

The present invention may also be applied to a library system to estimate the popularity of books in the collection of the number and frequency of books borrowed, possibly over a feature time period. In particular, these libraries may be electronic libraries of electronic books in the home, where indications similar to FIGS. 3 and 4 are in communication with personal choices. Because children read repeatedly, this can be especially beneficial for children's books. Electronic libraries typically use electronic books that are widely available throughout the day, such as those provided by Glassbook Inc., Librius Inc., NuvoMedia Inc., and SoftBook Press Inc., for example.

Another field of use may be electronic game collectibles, which may be used in the environment of personal collectibles or in rental shops. As the medium grows larger and larger, PlayStation and Nintendo games may be combined on a single recording medium. If so, the invention is implemented with a fast game console and can easily access games stored on a single medium. In a similar manner, the present invention can be applied to home PCs with multiple games stored. All these environments can be benefited by the indications according to the invention as shown in FIGS. 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8.

As can be seen, the data structures can be used with a wide variety of media. The manner in which the data structure is stored depends on the associated physical medium. If the data structure of FIG. 1 is used, data regarding frequency of use, personalized or otherwise, may be stored with its own items. Of course, there are provided items stored on rewritable media, such as solid RAM, rewritable CDs or DVDs, jukeboxes comprising them, or a combination thereof. This is the case, for example, if the files are MP3 audio files with ID3 tags. However, this is not practical for very large user groups, since a great deal of information needs to be stored with each item. In this case, it is more suitable to separately store the data structure as usage profiles on the same medium or on separate media. If the item is stored on a read-only medium such as a CD, DVD, or if the items are repositories associated with a remote server, then the latter individual medium would obviously need to prevent the user from writing over it. By way of example, a CD jukebox system may be equipped with separate storage means such as a hard disk or solid memory. This preferably allows storage of the required frequency (i.e. number of times accessed) and the last time accessed for the data structure of FIG. 1, or the individual time stamps required for the data structure of FIG. 2, with a unique IRSC code CD identifier. something to do.

It should be noted that it is apparent to those skilled in the art that the above-described embodiments are intended to illustrate rather than limit the invention, and that many alternative embodiments may be designed without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim. The word "comprises" does not exclude the presence of elements or steps other than those described in a claim. The invention can be implemented by means of hardware comprising several distinct elements, and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In the device claim enumerating several means, these various means may be embodied in terms of the same hardware. The simple fact that certain measures are described in different dependent claims does not advantageously indicate that combinations of these measures cannot be used.

Claims (15)

A method for facilitating the selection of at least one item from the selection of items, each of which includes identification information for identifying each item: Associating each item with information regarding at least the last time accessed; Providing information about the frequency of access of each item, Specifying selection criteria regarding the last time accessed and the frequency of access, and Displaying a limited selection of items based on the specified selection criteria. The method of claim 1, And said information about said access frequency is information for a given time period. The method of claim 2, Item selection, characterized in associating each item with information about the time each item was accessed and calculating the frequency of access of each item based on the information about each time the item was accessed and the given time period. How to facilitate. The method of claim 2 or 3, Correlating each item with information about the number of times each item has been accessed, and calculating the frequency of access of each item based on the information about each time the item was accessed and the given time period. How to facilitate. The method of claim 1, The information associated with each item at least about the last time accessed, and the information provided about the frequency of access of each item is further associated with information about a particular user, wherein the particular selection criteria further comprises an identification of the user. Characterized in that it facilitates item selection. The method of claim 1, And said selection criteria relating to said last time accessed and said frequency of access are specified by input means which are essentially constantly changing. In the data structure associated with the item, At least the information about the last time the item was accessed and information about the frequency of access of the item can be derived. The method of claim 7, wherein And wherein the information from which information about the frequency of access of the item can be derived comprises information about each time the item is accessed. The method of claim 7, wherein And wherein said information from which information regarding the frequency of access of said item can be derived comprises a counter. The method of claim 7, wherein Identification information for at least one user, and for the particular user, information about the last time the item was accessed and information about the frequency of access of the item may be derived. Data structure. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 10, And the data structure comprises the item. Jukebox apparatus comprising a memory for storing a plurality of items, a display for displaying identification information identifying the items, input means for selecting at least one of the items, and output means for accessing a selected item among the items To Jukebox apparatus, characterized in that the input means comprises essentially continuously varying input means for specifying selection criteria relating to the last time accessed and the frequency of access. The method of claim 12, Jukebox device, characterized in that it comprises a multimedia computer in which items having an associated data structure according to claim 7 are stored. A storage medium in which the data structure of claim 7 is stored. An apparatus for facilitating the selection of at least one item from the selection of items, each of which includes identification information for identifying each item: Means for associating each item with at least information about the last time accessed; Means for providing information regarding the frequency of access of each item, Means for specifying selection criteria relating to the last time accessed and the frequency of access, and Means for displaying a limited selection of items based on the specified selection criteria.